Page 13 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

“Thanks,” she said, stepping inside the foyer and rubbing her hands together as if she were cold. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Obvs.”

She rolled her eyes. “I guess we could talk now.”

“I thought you had to work,” he said dryly.

“I do. I need to get back, but...I had Liberty draw a card for me and she got the Moon. And then I started panicking because you want my books, and the Moon is all about hidden enemies.”

“What’s the Moon card?”

“It’s a tarot card from the Rider-Waite deck.”

“Of course it is,” he said. Maybe shewasa witch. His assistant, Hazel, drew cards at the different moon phases, but she really didn’t share any of that with Wes. He was too practical for that sort of nonsense. He’d never seen any influence over his life except his own hot-tempered, stupid decisions. A card or interference from the universe had never been anything he’d given credence to.

“I guess you don’t believe in spirits and the influence of the world around us.”

“Nope. Though one time Oz and I did use the Magic 8 Ball to decide if we should get Pokémon Diamond or Pokémon Pearl. Does that count?”

She shook her head and laughed. It was such a light, tinkling sound, for a minute he forgot he was in this place. The one spot he didn’t want to be and found himself once again thinking about her mouth. That laughter had to be some sort of spell, right? It wasn’t anything he had ever heard in his place. “No.”

“Was Grandpa into all that?” he asked. Maybe she’d used her tarot cards to influence him.

“Ford was too practical for that. But he always had a few books to recommend to me since he knew I was.”

“Like which ones?”

“TheBook of English Magiccomes to mind,” she said. “It was interesting, but it’s a modern book pretending to be an antique, and I prefer older tomes.”

“Me too. And I like the wordtomes. Hardly anyone uses it.”

“I do own a bookshop, you know.”

He could almost fool himself into thinking she was flirting with him. If he’d met her at an estate sale, he definitely would have been flirting with her. Since the moment their hands had met, a low hum had been running through his body. He’d done his best to ignore it, but now that she was here and close to him, it was hard to ignore the heat creeping through his skin and the blood pounding from his ears to his dick.

“Yeah, I’ve been to it. So what else did you two do?” he asked. He still wasn’t entirely sure of that relationship. How much time could she spend talking about books? Maybe it was his own attraction to her making him want to poke holes in what was probably an innocent relationship. He wanted there to be something about her he could point to and say,Got ya, you were using him.

He was jealous. Not that he was ever going to admit it to her. He’d been the one to walk away from Grandpa, but Wes had never thought Ford would find someone else to teach his bookbinding craft to. It had been their thing.

“He showed me bookbinding techniques and different ways to make covers. He knew a lot about bookmaking.”

“I know about that. What else did he share?”

“Yeah, he’d worked as an apprentice in a shop in London when he was eighteen,” she said. “He got up to a lot of adventures there.”

Adventures.

The old man had been an apprentice in a bookbinding shop? This was news to him.

FFS. There might be more to why Ford had left her the books than Wes wanted to deal with. When he looked at her now, he wasn’t seeing a sexy, grown-up Hermione but something more. A real woman who had formed a bond with his grandpa. Something Wes had left an opening for.

Maybe she could give him some of the closure he was looking for. Of course, she’d never be able to tell him why Grandpa had bailed him out in college or helped him start his business. Or if he’d ever forgiven Wes for pushing him away and ignoring him. But she would be able to give him some insight into Ford Sitwell, and maybe that would bring the answers he needed.

Trusting her instincts had never felt so difficult. She’d always been able to sum up a person in a few minutes, but Wesley wasn’t cooperating. Typical of her exchanges with him so far. But this couldn’t be blamed on him. This mistrust was all on her.

And maybe a little bit on Liberty, who’d kept harping on about how he looked, and Sera’s own traitorous thoughts, which kept stirring up images of him reading to her without his shirt on. Not helpful. In the bookshop with his open overcoat, she’d been limited to admiring his thick hair, which was begging for her to run her fingers through it. If there was a God, then it would at least be greasy or feel gross, but she could already tell from her spot across from him at the kitchen table that it wasn’t.

She was making do with a cup of Lipton’s because he didn’t have Earl Grey. Which made her feel bougie to even think. When she’d first started changing her energy from best friend to leading lady, she’d stopped apologizing for liking things. Stopped settling for good enough and okay because she was a foster kid, stopped feeling she should just be grateful for small things.

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